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All posts for the month May, 2009

This is an interesting ad for the rare first generation Nissan Silvia, model CSP311. It depicts a left hand drive car of which only one was ever built as far as I’m aware. That single LHD car was a prototype. There were originally plans to market the Silvia Coupé in the United States, hence the re-naming of the car to ‘Datsun Coupé 1600’ and in fact an example was even displayed at the New York motor show in 1965, although that car from what I can establish, was right hand drive and ultimately got shipped back to Japan after the decision was made that the model was unsuitable for the US market. In the end, only a single CSP311 Silvia was ever officially sold in the US and that was to Hawaii Datsun importer and racer, Elroy Goto. That car still exists today but what became of the LHD Silvia? Click though for the only pictures I can find of the left hand drive CSP311…

The latest issue of Japanese Nostalgic Car magazine flopped through my letterbox a few days ago and as always it’s a highly professional looking magazine with high class photography. This, the third issue, has been a little long in coming but like much of the publishing industry, Japanese Nostalgic Car has been hit by the economic downturn as companies within the motor industry trim back their advertising budgets. The good news is that the magazine is still healthy, thanks in part to relatively small overheads, and will continue which is very good news for vintage Japanese car fans. If you haven’t checked Japanese Nostalgic Car magazine out before it’s well worth a look. International subscriptions are available via the Japanese Nostalgic Car website.